(photo: @johnnyabroad)
Let’s be real: it’s actually pretty nice, right, to just do the same things day in, day out?
It lets you be in your safe little comfort zone and you don’t have to experience anything that would possibly make you feel bad.
Why would you not watch Netflix for hours, instead of going out and talking to a bunch of women/men and potentially get rejected?
Or apply for that one job you’d love but instead just sit around at that dead-end job you’ve not been enjoying for a lot of time, just because you might get rejected?
Rejection sounds awful, painful, something that has a bad vibe to it in any way, shape or form.
But let me tell you: rejection and failing are the only way to ever move forward. To be able to improve yourself in a way that you have never improved yourself before.
Because while you are laying on your bed, watching episode number 9 of that show you enjoy so much while feeling extremely bad about yourself for nothing doing anything worthwhile, here’s the one question you should ask yourself: “Am I truly doing the thing that I believe I should be doing?”
If the answer is yes: keep doing it, that’s your choice. If the answer is no, though, it means your subconscious is telling you something: that there’s more to life than what you are experiencing now.
Most people don’t realize this: the fact that you are unhappy usually comes from the fact that you are not putting yourself into satisfactory situations that allow you to grow. Now, I’m not saying that’s the answer for everyone (chronic depression is one of the exceptions here). But for most people that currently are feeling down, who have that feeling that there’s more for them in this world, for those people I believe there is a very easy solution.
Because experiencing new things is the only way to experience new emotions. Emotions? Yes, emotions. See, most people believe that when they get out of their comfort zone, that they will terrible – Forever!
I’ll tell you a little secret: life truly starts at the end of your comfort zone. Living in your comfort zone for the rest of your life is just a recipe for yourself to never improve and to never build the discipline that is needed to get ahead in life.
How to get out of your comfort zone
Now that you have a decent view of knowing how your comfort zone works, it is important to realize that it’s actually very easy to get out of your comfort zone. You know what makes a good salesperson? The best people in sales aren’t just born like that, they allowed themselves to grind their teeth on the pavement for months, even years, in order to realize what does work and what doesn’t work.
That’s a little thing called failure: something that most people will never want to experience because it hurts like a bitch to fail, right? And it does, it’s pretty painful to get rejected. Whether it’s your dream job, getting the phone number of that hot chick that you met at the bar or shamefully hearing that no from a client you thought you’d close today.
But in every failure, there’s something incredible: the opportunity to analyze it, learn from what you did wrong and to avoid that mistake the next time. Life isn’t easy, and it won’t get easier when you are never willing to get out of your comfort zone. There’s not much to be grateful for if you never experience new things, if you never create new habits in your life – if you never find a way to improve yourself
There’s no gratitude in always staying the same, especially not in this world. The people that outperform others, that get to the top in the field that they are in, the ones that are crazy enough to think it might actually work (sup, Steve Jobs), those are the ones that will actually truly change the environment they are in – those are the ones that might just actually change the world.
And that’s – if you take anything from this at all – the one thing that should be on your mind: never be afraid to fail. Yes, failure sucks, it’s fucking horrible – it will keep you up at night, like those embarrassing moments from high school that sometimes come up in your head and make your whole body shiver.
But there’s little to respect yourself for if you do not get out of that comfort zone. There’s nothing to improve yourself on if you never get out of it. There’s nothing else in life when you don’t find a way to push yourself, to find the right ways to get out of your comfort zone and work yourself up to a level that you are content with.
Failure is something you should be experiencing every single day. Because if you aren’t experiencing failure then you aren’t getting yourself into situations where failure is a potential option. It means you are always picking the safe option. The option that will never get you to be embarrassed in any way.
But again, every failure is an opportunity for yourself to improve, to grow into the best version of yourself. The best chess players in the world aren’t the ones that have never lost a game – because those are the ones that won’t make it to the top. The best players are the ones that kept playing even though they just had a terrible defeat, the ones that kept playing after losing game after game. Because every game they lose is a new strategy for them to analyze, a new way for them to learn what they can do better next time in order to avoid getting caught in that strategy.
Fail, fail, fail, and then fail some more
Stop looking at failure like it’s an ugly word – like it’s something that should be avoided in life. Life is full of situations where you can fail, but the trick is to never look at yourself like you are a failure. Those are two entirely different things.
Every failure you encounter in life is something wonderful. Sure, it takes a while to see how you can be grateful for it, but in the end, it is always worth it to fail. Because when you see failure as a potential option that is actually beneficial for you, you will no longer have a problem with failure.
You might just feel terrible for a few hours after failing. That’s natural, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Even the most successful people in life, the ones we see as legends, fail every now and then – and even they feel terrible because of it. But the trick is to find a way for yourself to not look at that failure for days, weeks or even months. Instead, look at it, learn from it.
And that’s one of the biggest principles that you should have in your life if you truly want to be disciplined in life. If you truly want to get somewhere in your life, to use your talents for something that is bigger than yourself, it means you need to get out of that comfort zone. It means you need to be content with failing every now and then.
Experiencing new things allows you to fail
That’s why it is so important to experience new things. They allow you to fail. Do you want to pick up the guitar? Odds are the first few days every note you play is going to sound horrible. Because you have no idea what you are doing and how to actually play it.
But after a few days, that popular C, Am, G, F progression is going to be a lot easier. You pick up those chords one by one, making sure your fingers touch the right chords at the right bar. You learn to progress between them. And then, after a few days, you’re playing every single Pop song that was ever recorded, on your guitar.
But you won’t get there if you just keep doing the things you are always doing. If you stay in that comfort zone and always repeat the same things you have been doing all these weeks, months or years.
Failing is something beautiful and you will only experience it if you try out new things. It’s the one thing that will keep you going during a life in which you want to reach whatever it truly is you want to reach.
Push yourself, beyond the boundaries that your mind is making up. Do it, don’t even think about it. You know that feeling, right? There’s this hot girl, standing there at the bar.
You think about approaching her, but the longer you hesitate, the more doubts you will make up in your mind and the more reasons you will make up in order to not actually do it. And then, after 5 seconds, you won’t actually do it. But if you just ignored that, if you just do it as soon as you think about it, that’s how you get out of your comfort zone.
Because your brain is telling you that it wants you to get out of that comfort zone. That brain of yours is telling you to talk to that girl, to apply for that job, to go to the gym today.
But every single second you take to not do it or to not prepare for it is a second in which you allow yourself to make up stupid reasons on why you shouldn’t do it. “Nah, she won’t like me”, “Nah, they’ll find a better person for that job” or “Nah, I’ll go to the gym tomorrow”.
These are all terrible reasons that the voice in your head is telling you, but there was already a voice before that telling you that you should do it – start ignoring that voice, it’s not making you a better person. In fact, it’s the sole thing that is stopping you from being a better person!